Australia From North To South Advent Calendar [12] Quiz

12.46 S, 130.84E

The Top End is approximately the top one-third of the Northern Territory - the part that has an enormous wet season from November to March. Darwin is the capital of the Northern Territory. It is the smallest, wettest, and most northerly of the Australian capital cities, and indeed is the most northerly city in Australia. The Aboriginal people of the Larrakia nation are the traditional owners and first inhabitants of the Darwin area.

John Clements sailed into what is now known as Darwin Harbour in 1839 and named it Port Darwin, but it was not settled until 1869 when a small outpost was established to assist in constructing the Overland telegraph which was to connect Australia with the rest of the world. It was named Palmerston then but was soon changed to Darwin (A planned satellite city of Darwin 20 km to the south in 1971 was named Palmerston City). In 2021, Darwin's population was 140 000 being over half of the entire NT population. It is a modern city, in part because it has had to be rebuilt four times; it was destroyed by cyclones in 1897, 1937 and 1974. Additionally, Darwin was bombed by the Japanese in 1942. The 1974 cyclone hit on Christmas Day. (One of Australia's most defining and enduring songs. "Santa never made it into Darwin" (1975) by Bill and Boyd is about that day).

Darwin, besides becoming a major port, was an important fuelling point for the Australia-to-London aviation route.

At Christmas time, Darwin is so hot. Not so much the temperature (Darwin is the only state or territory capital that has never reached 40C) but the very high humidity is stifling.

The author of this quiz is going to take a 5000 km road trip from the northernmost capital to the southernmost. On the way, we will visit some great Australian places.

14.45 S, 132.27 E

Katherine is 300 km south of Darwin on the Stuart Highway. With 8000 residents, it is the fourth biggest Northern Territory town after Darwin, Palmerston City, and Alice Springs.

The first inhabitants of the area were the Dagoman people who have lived in the region for at least 25 000 years. The town was established on the banks of the Katherine River (which flows year-round, unlike most rivers further south in the Northern Territory which are dry most of the year) in 1872 when a telegraph station was constructed as part of the Overland Telegraph Line and a small town ensued. Gold was discovered 90 km to the north which boosted Katherine's population.

Tourists are attracted to the area to see Nitmiluk National Park, particularly the beautiful Nitmiluk (Katherine) Gorge with its ancient rock paintings possibly over 50,000 years old. There is a large RAAF base 17 km to the south and the town provides health, education and government services for the 2000 personnel stationed there.

20.72N, 139.49 E

From Katherine it's 675 km to the next town: Tennant Creek. However, just north of the town is a crossroads where a decision has to be made: We can continue due south, 500 km to Alice Springs and then another 1500 km to Adelaide on the south coast of Australia before heading southeast into Victoria. The alternative route is to turn left and head southeast into Queensland and then southeast until we hit the east coast of Australia before heading southwest into NSW and Victoria. We chose the latter, as while it is over 1000 km longer, there are many more places to visit on this route. This would have been an eight-question quiz besides, so few towns on the former route.

Mt Isa is 680km southeast of Tennant Creek near the Queensland/NT border. In a region where Kalkadoon people have lived for over 20, 000 years, a town was founded in 1923 when deposits of silver, lead and copper were found by a prospector, John Miles. A town was soon built to service the mine, the largest single mine producing silver, lead and copper mineral in the world.

The city had 17000 people in 2021, most either working in the mine or service industries to the mine. The town is divided north-south by the Leichhardt River (dry most of the year). The mine is west of the river ('Mineside') and the 'Townside' is east of the river. Don't go looking for the mountain in the city's name. It is named after a mining region in Western Australia called Mt Ida whereas town founder Miles changed the 'd' to an 's' after his sister Isabell. If you want to see the view, just climb the 270m chimney stack in the mine itself. The landscape is flat so you can see for many, many miles from the top.

23.44 S, 144.25 E

Longreach is a popular tourist and pastoral town 647km southeast of Mt Isa by road. It is on the Tropic of Capricorn.

The region is within the traditional tribal lands of the Iningai people. The town formed when the Central Western Railway terminated here in 1902, a few kilometres from the Thomson River. The town of approximately 3200 people (2021 census) appears much larger as there are always plenty of tourists in town. The main attractions are the Australian Stockman's Hall of Fame and the Qantas Founders Outback Museum (The tailplane of the Boeing 747 on display can be seen 45 km away as the land is so flat in the region). All the streets in the town are named after birds.

At this stage we need to head to Brisbane, which is a 13-hour drive whether we head due east for 700 km following the Tropic of Capricorn on the Landsborough Highway until we reach Rockhampton near the east coast and then head 640 km south on the Bruce highway; or we can head south-east for 520km until we hit the tiny town of Morven then head due east for 650 km along the Warrego Highway. The latter is slightly quicker.

27.47 S, 153.02 E

The Jagera (Yugara) and the Turrbal people are the traditional custodians of the land over which Brisbane has been built.

Brisbane, the capital of the state of Queensland, is located in the southeast corner of this massive state. It was declared a Global City in 2008. It has come a long way since its overgrown country town feel of the 1970s. Hosting the Commonwealth Games in 1982 and the World Expo in 1988 brought Brisbane into world focus and it grew up fast. Forty years later in 2024, it is a vibrant pulsating city of 2.7 million people and the centre of a conurbation of 4 million people including being flanked by the beautiful Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast, themselves being the ninth and sixth largest Australian cities respectively. Blessed with year-round warm temperatures, Brisbane offers a relaxed and outdoor lifestyle (though it floods periodically, occasionally with devastating effects). It is known for its outdoor restaurant and coffee lifestyle.

Brisbane is defined by its river after which it was named. It bisects the city from northeast to southwest and while people from here are known as Brisbanites, local people identify as Northsiders or Southsiders depending on which side of the river they live on. As the river meanders through the city, Brisbane has become a city of bridges with many of the bridges built in the 21st century being pedestrian- and foot- bridges to encourage alternative transportation over private cars.

33.86 S, 151.21 E

Heading south after leaving Brisbane, we soon cross over into New South Wales where it is a straight run down the Pacific Highway, 900 kilometres away to Sydney. Since 1989 when there were two horrific bus crashes killing 55 people, the entire highway has been duplicated in the style of the US Interstate highways, and in 2024 skirted around every town except Coffs Harbour.

Gadigal people are the traditional owners and custodians of Sydney. There is no doubt that this city, the New South Wales State capital, is beautiful, blessed with a massive harbour that facilitates many of its five million-plus residents to have water views from their houses. With ocean-fronted beaches just a short distance from the city centre, Sydney attracts millions of tourists each year. However, Sydney is a very expensive place to live. Hemmed in by National Parks that almost surround Sydney, the only way Sydney can grow is westward, far away from any water views. The geographic centre of Sydney is not the city centre but it is at Parramatta, a city in its own right, 25 km west.

35.28 S, 149.13 E

While it is a straight 860km run southwest from Sydney to Melbourne down the Hume Highway, an 80km diversion down the Federal Highway south of Goulburn, three hours out of Sydney, will allow you to arrive in Canberra, the nation's capital, home of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people.

Many people believe that the location of Canberra was chosen for Australia's capital as it was halfway between Sydney and Melbourne, the two largest cities by far around the time of the federation in 1901. However, this is not quite correct. The decision agreed on was that the capital could be located in New South Wales as long as it wasn't within 100 miles of Sydney. The Australian Capital Territory is an enclave within NSW. Most of the land (2,358 km2 / 910 sq mi) is national parks with Canberra located in the far northeast of the territory.

An international competition was devised to design the capital. An American, Walter Burley-Griffin won the competition in 1911. He designed a city in a triangle shape aligned around the three hills surrounding the city. Each point of the triangle would feature either Parliament House, a city centre or a park-like area containing all the major national institutions expected in a capital city. This triangle was bisected by an east-west water axis, which in this case was the Molonglo River which was dammed to create a central lake (and named after its designer). The city was designed around the garden city movement concept which was a 20th century urban planning concept featuring satellite communities surrounding the central city and separated by greenbelts. The resulting city is unique in design in Australia.

Canberra is a city of over 420,000 people in what is the seventh largest city and the largest inland city in Australia.

37.81 S, 144.96 E

After a quick dash from Canberra north to Yass, we are back on the Hume Highway for our seven-hour run to Melbourne, noting as we cross the mighty Murray River at the twin towns of Albury-Wodonga, we have crossed the state boundary into Victoria.

The Kulin nation peoples including the two traditional owner groups, the Wurundjeri and Bunurong, have lived in the now Melbourne region for nearly 40 000 years. Melbourne is the capital and largest city in Victoria as well as Australia. It is situated at the northern end of Port Phillip Bay where the Yarra River flows into the bay. The first settlement here was in 1803 which was a penal settlement, located further south around the bay in what is now known as Sorrento. However, it was abandoned soon after and relocated to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania). No further settlement was attempted until John Batman explored the region in 1835 and commenced a settlement on the Yarra's north bank. The settlement was known as Dootigala, a native name, then briefly as Batmania before its final name Melbourne, named after the British Prime Minister, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne.

The small town grew modestly until gold was discovered at Bendigo and Ballarat both less than 100 miles north of Melbourne; wealth came to the region and Melbourne became bigger than Sydney. Around Federation both Sydney and Melbourne vied for the position of national capital before it was settled on the 'Canberra compromise'. Nevertheless, Melbourne served as an interim national capital from 1901 to 1927 until Canberra had been developed enough to govern the country.

If Brisbane is the Lifestyle City of Australia and Sydney the Most Beautiful Australian City, then Melbourne must be the Cultural and Sporting Capital of Australia. It has the most active arts and music culture of all Australian cities and it is both the home of Australian rules football and cricket, Australia's national summer sport. As it is Christmas time, one of the reasons to attempt this road trip was to attend the Boxing Day (cricket) Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, or as it is more commonly known the MCG or "The G"). This is the biggest stadium in the Southern Hemisphere where over 100,000 can enjoy a football match or cricket match depending on the season.

41.44S, 147.14E

While Victoria is the southernmost part of mainland Australia the island of Tasmania is the southernmost state in Australia, so it's off to the Spirit of Tasmania. This overnight car ferry leaves Melbourne for Davenport, a pretty city of 30000 people on the North Coast of Tasmania. From there, it is a pleasant one-hour drive of 100 km south and east along the Bass highway to the inland city of Launceston. This is one of Australia's oldest cities, first settled over 30,000 years ago by the nomadic Lettermairrener peoples who had a summer camp near the present city centre.

Europeans arrived in 1806 and a small settlement was started at the confluence of where the North and South Esk Rivers converged into the Tamer River, an estuary that runs north to Bass Strait. The town was named after its counterpart in Cornwall England. Growth was slow, serving mainly as a small commercial centre for the surrounding pastoral industry. Tin was discovered nearby and its subsequent mining boosted the population. In the 21st century, Launceston is the second largest city of 80,000 people. It serves as the major commercial hub for Northern Tasmania and the local economy is boosted by a strong tourism industry as much of the city has retained natural parkland and 19th and early 20th century architecture.

42.88 S 147.32 E

Just 200 km south of Launceston is Hobart, the capital of Tasmania. This is Australia's most southerly city and indeed it is further south than Wellington New Zealand, the world's most southerly national capital.

It is also Australia's second oldest city, first established in 1804 as a military outpost (to keep out any French claims for Van Diemen's Land!) and shortly after as a penal colony. Like most European colonisations, there were violent skirmishes with the local indigenous people. In this case, the semi-nomadic Mouheneener people were decimated in the 1804 Risdon Cove Massacre and later in the 1820s, the Black War, and in the end all surviving local indigenous people were exiled to Flinders Island in Bass Strait.

Hobart (originally Sullivan's Cove then Hobart Town) is a proud maritime city built on the Derwent River which is actually an estuary with a backdrop of 1,271-metre (4,170 ft) kunanyi / Mount Wellington (often snow-capped). It grew into a major whaling centre, and then as the major administrative centre for Tasmania. With a 2021 population of 250,000, the metropolitan area is spread out on either side of the Derwent River. The city is known as a base for Australian and French Antarctic operations and has a massive tourism presence.

Hobart also has a temperate maritime climate with summer maximums in the low- to mid-twenties, although occasional days as high as 35C are possible. Winters are cool with the temperatures uncommonly dropping below 0C, though snow whilst rare, is possible. Finally comfortable temperatures at Christmas in Australia. If nothing else, the dramatic temperature difference between Darwin and Hobart highlights the size of Australia. Also as I am in Hobart at Christmas time, one can witness one of Australia's greatest sporting traditions, the Sydney to Hobart Yacht race which starts in Sydney on Boxing Day and finishes on the Derwent near downtown Hobart.